Real Talk

Here’s a very real cell phone picture I took yesterday sitting at my kitchen table so that I could better illustrate my state of mind to my best friend, Rachel via fb messenger. “An appropriate uniform for today,” I wrote. “Mama Bear.”

I have a unique look into the personal minds of women in my community. The kind of full service experience we offer at Hot Tomato often comes with a small therapy session. Most often this takes on a celebratory form like “Yeah, I just moved through this milestone or jumped this hurdle  and want to rock my new found power with a phenomenal session with you girls!” But sometimes there’s pain. A lot of pain. And, most times that pain can be traced to a very specific time 7 year period of time, the “teen years.” (Cue Mama Bear).

Mama Bear

Most of you know me and even if you only know me from social media, you are likely aware that number one, I have an unreasonable number of extremely spoiled dogs and two, that I live with THREE smart, hilarious, talented, gorgeous teenage daughters (and one very patient man whose love for us all far exceeds any rational amount of understanding, thank God).

These brilliant and fascinating teenagers have taught me more about being a woman in this world than any single experience I’ve had in my own female body. And, know this. There is pain. It takes a strong woman to raise strong women. It takes fierce bravery to be the authority and an equal, to be the example of both feminine and powerful and to be involved but not too involved.

Real Talk

Women typically don’t just sit down and launch into their personal pain stories with me upon walking into The Parlor but I’ve gotten pretty good at noticing when you have something buried deep that ultimately brought you to where you sit. with me. taking this step. breaking out of your comfort zone. So, after a while of casual conversation and logistics, the real work begins.

“Okay, so…real talk,” I begin.

It’s during this portion of our initial talk that I start to see the pain. This is a good thing. It’s part of growing and it’s part of healing. It’s the single most important part of the Hot Tomato process for me. It really IS! I’m not just coming out of the closet with this empowering stuff, ya know. We mean it. But, even though I feel really fortunate to be a part of the healing, it infuriates me that women still have to carry around feelings of guilt, fear and shame for YEARS before seeking their peace and their power.

Gather. Connect. Empower.

I thought for a long time about that line. I want to start something. Maybe I want to start a whole bunch of somethings. We need to talk..really talk. We need to talk about raising girls, being supportive friends, teaching personal boundaries, being sex positive, and loving our changing bodies. I want to think outside the box, make progress, be outspoken, and share pain. I’m putting it out there. I don’t want to wait. If you have an idea, email it to me. now. don’t wait.

Let’s just talking about what we want to talk about. Then let’s talk about it. Then, let’s change the world our girls are growing up in.

Real Talk

a post by: Jesse Hyde

Written by hottomatopinupacademy8

Founder and former co-owner of Hot Tomato Pin-Up Academy,

1 comment